Little Theatres Exhibition at The New Theatre Royal

The New Theatre Royal has had a great response to their call for artwork for their Little Theatres Art Exhibition. We mentioned this in a previous post a few weeks ago. The exhibition was opened by Sheila Hancock yesterday and all works can currently be seen in their Circle Gallery. Participants from all ages have exhibited a wide range of work in different formats. Well worth a visit along with grabbing a coffee and something to eat at the Conservatory Cafe.

This Tuesday at the New Theatre Royal

This Tuesday (22nd November) the New International Encounter Theatre Company will be performing their latest show, Tales from a Sea Journey.

Tales from a Sea Journey had its world premiere on 13 January as the opening performance of NIE´s 10th Anniversary Festival Vol.I in Dramatikkens Hus, Oslo.

In November 2009, NIE embarked on a transatlantic voyage on board a container ship, the GMA-CGM Fort St Louis from Le Havre in France to Guadeloupe in the West Indies. They were rocked by a North Atlantic storm, delayed by French dock strikes, woken in the night by the smell of the land and warmed by the Caribbean sun.

For the first time NIE have worked with a writer, the Icelandic novelist and poet Sjón, lyricist for many of Björk’s best known tunes and winner of the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2005 for the novel Skugga-Baldur. Together with Sjón, NIE explored stories and myths from the sea, songs and shanties and letters from home. Blurring a fine line between fact and fiction, the show explores the pull and power of the sea from both a very epic and very personal perspective.

Masquerade – New Theatre Royal

MASQUERADE – Tilted Productions.
An excursion into the inner spheres of the sleeping mind

Masquerade, inspired by Freud’s interpretation of dreams, comes to the New Theatre Royal on Wed 2 February at 7.30pm.

Winner of Time Out Live award for outstanding choreography, Maresa von Stockert will collaborate with renowned SFX artist John Schoonraad, to create delicately sculpted faces and prosthetics that will be brought to life by the dancers and become an integral and intricate part of the piece’s physical poetry.

Feasting the eyes and provoking the mind, six outstanding performers will evoke vivid imagery from the beautifully macabre to the violently sensual.

Masquerade invites you to leave the rules of reason behind and dive into a dreamlike world that gives free rein to the choreographer’s ‘scrupulously focused yet wildly hallucinatory’ (the Guardian) imagination.

Student tickets from £6!

Following the show there will be a free question and answer session with the company.

Book now on 023 9264 9000 or at www.newtheatreroyal.com

Hunt for treasure on New Theatre Royal’s brand new website!

The New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth was delighted yesterday to launch its contemporary new website with an exciting competition for its visitors!

Just visit www.newtheatreroyal.com and search for Capt’n Flint’s hidden treasure chest. If you spot the chest simply click on it and you may find yourself with a family ticket to see the NTR’s Christmas family musical, Treasure Island.

Bemoan the passing of Billy Bones, dodge the curse of the black spot and join Jim Hawkins and pirate girl Tempest Silver as they go on the trail of untold treasures and incredible adventures.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic family adventure with a local twist begins performances on Wednesday 8 December and you could be in with a chance of winning tickets by searching for online treasure! The treasure will change location each week for the next five weeks and a winner will be picked every Monday.

Jacqui Dankworth At the New Theatre Royal

Given her musical pedigree – daughter of Dame Cleo Laine and the late Sir John Dankworth – it’s no surprise that Jacqui Dankworth is considered to be “one of the classiest acts in British jazz singing” (The Guardian). She will bring her new show, Back to You, to the New Theatre Royal on Saturday 18th September at 7.30pm. Her third solo album, Back to You, was released to critical acclaim in autumn 2009, hitting the Top Ten jazz charts. The album is a heady mix of Jacqui’s own catchy compositions – fusing jazz, soul, folk and blues – plus arrangements of a few contemporary classics by composers such as James Taylor, Randy Newman, Sting and Keb’ Mo’.

Tickets are £15 (£13 concessions) from the box office on 023 9264 9000 or online at www.newtheatreroyal.com.

Breakin’ & Contemporary Dance live in Guildhall Square

Hot off the press another live event at Guildhall Square. Ballet and Breakdancing with BMX Bikes!

Extreme Sport, Physical Theatre, Breakin’ & Contemporary Dance live in Guildhall Square.
In association with the New Theatre Royal, Creative Campus Initiative and the Big Screen

“Kompany Malakhi continue to create their unique brand of cutting edge work with this gritty yet graceful exploration of cause and effect. It comes to Guildhall Square, Portsmouth on Friday 25 June at 12pm and 1.15pm and it is FREE for everyone!

Fusing BMX flatland, Breakin’ and contemporary dance, Kompany Malakhi premiere their latest work, Rotations, in Portsmouth ahead of a national tour.

Hailed as “powerful and enlightening” by critics, Rotations began as Project 360° in 2008 and was a great success, the new show is anticipated to be one of the most exhilarating outdoor performances witnessed this year.”

The event will also feature a short experimental film about the Portsmouth Olympian Cyclist, Clarence Kingsbury. All created with the BBC, the Big Screen and Creative Campus Initiative from the University of Portsmouth as part of the developing Portsmouth History Project.

Each performance lasts 20 minutes (12pm – 12.20pm and 1.15pm – 1.35pm) so make sure you are in Guildhall Square on Friday 25 June to catch this stunning display!

For more information please contact the box office on 023 9264 9000 or visit www.newtheatreroyal.com

Chesney Hawkes

What with the Portsmouth game being cancelled I think that the record attempt was a close run thing, pity about the weather too. Looked like fun though and hopefully it’s helped raise money for the New Theatre Royal. The event even made it on to the BBC News website!

(Video by Dan Smyth)

We Are The One And Only…

Tomorrow the New Theatre Royal and Chesney Hawkes will be taking over Guildhall Square, performing air guitar with you and around 1,000 other children, students and members of the public, with the express aim of breaking the official Guinness World Record for ‘largest air guitar ensemble’ ever. There will also be a live video link with the waiting crowd at Portsmouth FC when the record is broken at 2:45pm, bringing the number of official participants to about 20,000 people. The air guitar record will be achieved by 20,000 people miming air guitar to and bellowing along with Chesney’s student anthem ‘I am the One and Only’; and we know you know the words…

Prior to this, the ‘Live Karaoke Band’ and Highbury College’s performance of ‘Stomp’ will be warming up the gathering crowd from 1:30pm. Also that night, there will be dancing in the stalls of the NTR with amazing 10 piece Cuban band, Kico Cowan’s Expression Cubana, from 7.30pm.

The Blue Room by David Hare

For only one night, David Hare’s ‘The Blue Room’ – Based on Schnitzler’s ‘La Ronde’ – will be on at the New Theatre Royal on Wednesday September 2nd 2009 at 7:30pm. 2007′s News Guide Award Best Actress winner Francesca McCrohon has brought together a full cast of other notable area talents for her final Portsmouth stage appearance before taking her place at the London drama School, East 15. All proceeds will go towards her tuition fees…come and support Francesca whilst enjoying a rare, fully staged performance of this masterpiece of love and lust. Tickets are £8 and £6 concessions. Please note that this play contains strong language and adult content.

Jonathan Larson’s ‘Rent’

Award winning local theatre company CCADS are proud to present the area premiere of the ‘Seasons Of Love’ musical, RENT at The New Theatre Royal from 3rd to the 6th of June.

This Pulitzer Prize winning update of ‘La Boheme’ is set against the gritty background of New York’s East Village and follows a group of struggling bohemians as they strive for success and acceptance whilst enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and AIDS. It is warm but poignant, tragic but incredibly uplifting and energizing…a piece that speaks to all who see it and features one of modern theatre’s most stunning musical scores.

Tickets are £5-£10 and £5 for concessions. For more information check the Facebook event and the New Theatre Royal, where you can also buy tickets online.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage